Nano Bytes - A Collection of Short SciFi Stories

Obsidian: Price I, by Cornman

"I confess I have made no covenant with your devil. My oaths are sworn to one much older. Tell me, Mr. Price, are you baptized?" She pressed her hand hard against Price. The chill became frost on fallen logs. Wet. Cold. Dead. "It matters not if you are."

Icy tendrils crept from the woman's touch. Price screamed. The cold would seem welcome, but it infected him. Worse than the heat. The woman took her hand away. Price looked down and saw a blackened handprint remain. He watched the flesh droop and fall, revealing smiling white arcs of rib.

Through tears he saw her stare into the fire once more. A long shadow trailed out behind her. In that shadow, a smile. The black edges of the wound crawled up Price's chest and into his throat.

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"That's strange."

A man's voice. Price knew it, but couldn't place it. The world was dark now. Something over his eyes. A blindfold? Rough hands gripped the sides of his head and unwrapped. White light stabbed at Price's vision, then the world focused. A man stood at a computer, studying a monitor.

"What is it?" A woman's voice. Not the one from the fire. Older. She came into view, stepping past Price to the PC. They were dressed in grey uniforms. Price wasn't in the woods. He was indoors. The room was lined with stainless steel and multi-colored wire.

"That one sounded like a period piece or something," the man said.

"Maybe he had a bad day at a re-enactment."

"No, his physiological response to it was real. Someone hurt him."

The woman shrugged. "Maybe a weird hazing thing? I dunno, does it matter?"

The man shook his head. "No, it's just strange. These simulations replicate real-life experiences. It's harder on them that way."

What was happening? Price struggled to place himself. He'd been in the woods outside Massachusetts. Then . . .

The memories hit him. Price's stomach tightened. The back of his tongue lifted up. His esophagus tensed. Price tried to double over, but he was strapped back tight to his chair. He vomited down the front of his shirt. Some of it didn't clear his mouth. He took a rasping breath and choked on the chunks. He coughed and gagged.

"Jesus H. Christ, again with this," the woman said, then moved over to Price. She loosened a strap and forced him to lean over. Price barked and dry heaved, eventually clearing his throat. "How many sims has he gone through?"

"Nearly two-hundred," the man answered. "He's still not cooperating."

Waves of recollection crashed over the rocks of Price's mind. Every injury he'd suffered, every harm that had been committed upon him, every guilt he'd ever felt. They were being played back to him on repeat. Over and over. He'd been here for weeks. In this chair. Reviewing a highlight reel of his life's worst memories. But the woman had been buried deep. Deeper than the others. The trivial hurts and harms these two had scoured from his brain meant little. He'd hidden the worst of it. If they picked too hard at that old wound, Price might not ever come back from it. Neither would these two. Those that found the secret things were also found out by the secrets. He had to get out. The strap zipped back into place and thrust him up in the chair.

"Ok, I guess we got time for a couple more today," the woman said. She wrapped Price's eyes back up. He opened his mouth to speak, but his vocal chords were frozen.

"Sure, sure. Maybe we'll get another new one." There was a clatter of keys. Price felt the world disappearing. Where was he again? What was happening?

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A gentle ca-clunk brought Price to his senses. He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He was on the subway. He stretched and a newspaper slid off his lap onto the ground. He reached down to grab it. A shadow fell over him. He looked up and saw a man looming. He looked homeless. Thick, grey beard. Dirty, torn clothes. Pungent smell. Homeless was smiling.

Price sat the newspaper back on his lap and ignored the guy. He felt the train slow and announce the stop. Somewhere in New York. It didn't matter where. Price was getting off. He stood and pushed past the man.

As he stepped out onto the landing, he turned to look back into the car. The doors slid shut, but Homeless continued to stare at him. A thick, fleshy tendril slithered out from beneath Homeless's coat and around the front of his chest. Price's heart tightened. He held his breath. They'd found him again. The train pulled away. The men held each other's eyes until the cars rolled into the yawning tunnel. Pressed into a dark mouth. Mechanical groans echoed back off the walls. It was gone.

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A gentle ca-clunk brought Price to his senses.

The people in grey played this memory back. Over and over. Trying to make sense of it. They found more memories like it. Many, many more.

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